Moneyball

Saw Moneyball, a docudrama about an early application of statistical analysis to baseball. It follows the general manager of the Oakland A's as he makes a bet on statistics which is both long-shot and (of course) pretty safe. He teams up with a fat, dainty econ major and shake up the game a bit.

This film follows the rich tradition of sports films, using a crescendo of nervy violins and fast cuts to build tension to a fever pitch, so that the final fumble or triumphant catch is all the more stirring. We are also treated to a bit of drama surrounding the protagonist's divorced wife and their daughter who is adorable and exists only to give the protagonist someone to not let down. Unfortunately, all of the math is left off screen. I suppose I could look it up, but I could also look up the marital status of the protagonist as well. Unfortunately the math is what I was most interested in, but okay, the general public is hysterically bored by math. Okay.

The film is very effective, building emotional stakes for the characters and tugging along the audience's feelings with adorable children and slow motion. The script has apparently been touched a bit by Aaron Sorkin and his trademark rat-a-tat-tat dialogue shows up here and there. I also liked Philip Seymour Hoffman's minor role as a coach. He uses his bulk effectively, slouching like a tired and circumspect man. I confess I have no interest in sports so I feel like I'm not getting the entire emotional wallop that I'm supposed to but even so, it was a good solid film.

Encounters at the End of the World

Saw Encounters at the End of the World, a documentary by Herzog about researchers and just people in general who live on the south pole. Herzog explains that he's eager to go to this remote place. He has a fascination with nature, and its supreme indifference to us. An enthusiastic fan of science in general, he visits lots of scientists and asks them utterly bizarre questions such "do penguins ever go insane?" To be fair however, the scientists give as good as they get, telling strange stories of linguistics and physics, the beginning of life and the universe. We meet a plumber who claims to be descended from Mayan royalty. He holds up his hands as proof.

The scientists are great oddballs but we also get to see Herzog indulge some of his almost spiritual obsession with nature. He shows underwater footage shot by scuba divers and plays unearthly choral songs over it. The divers refer to the area beneath the ice as "the cathedral" we hear, and the world down there is vast, strange, filled with perfectly still creatures, slowly moving about in supercooled water. Most impressive are the utterly alien noises that seals apparently make underwater. (have a listen, it's crazy!)

We also hear Herzog shake his head at modern civilization. Calling the yoga studios at the base camp "abominations" and wryly interviewing a cafeteria worker who mans the Frosty Boy ice cream machine. Again and again the scientists beat the drum of global warming. Many of them have given up entirely. Herzog tells us that most of them think that mankind is already doomed.

Indeed, in spite of the beauty of the south pole and the alien inhabitants, the scientists and people are the real stars. Each is a free-spirit or oddball and quite proud of that fact. Herzog seems delighted to display them.

Charulata

Saw Charulata, a Satyajit Ray film from the 60s. The titular character, Charulata, is the neglected wife of a rich man who spends his time as the editor of a political newspaper. He is aware of her loneliness, but does not realize how deep it runs. He invites a literature-professor cousin to come stay with them, to entertain Charulata. Sure enough, he comes like a breath of fresh air, smiling and whistling, and singing a song about cuckoos (indeed.) Charulata's husband, the editor, has laid the seeds of his own betrayal but then again, it was he who neglected her first.

This was a very literary film. Dryly believable events are reflected off of the main characters and magnified into personal disasters. The cinematography reflects this as wide-angle shots suddenly zoom in to intimate close-ups. In contrast to this, the editor is always focused on the abstract and geopolitical. The bookcase in his room has many more books than Charulata's but hers are much more well-worn.

The film is a domestic drama. It deals with romance and the central eventual affair in an distant way. This being the 60s, they couldn't have Charulata smooching with the other man, so the film plays it coy, never quite defining what their relationship is or what it's becoming. To label it as an affair (as I've done here) is to remove the intrigue from the film. It's really much more complex than that. An interesting film.

The Full Monty

Saw The Full Monty, the male stripper film from the 90s. The film opens in Sheffield which was apparently a dying, once-great steel-town at the time. The protagonist and his friends are out of work ex-steel workers who have no jobs and decide to try their hand at stripping. This might be a pointed bit of social commentary about exploitation but the audience seems to be other Sheffield-ians, so nothing doing there I think. There's some male body-positivity thrown in however, and they kindly throw a bone to the gays in audience, which is nice.

The film is funny in a sort For Better or Worse, dramedy kind of way. I think it was originally a play. Most of the film takes place in fixed locations with, of course, a big dance number at the end. The draw of the play would then be the same as the draw to their big finale strip show: will they or won't they go Full Monty?

I generally liked the film. It's not as sexy as what I take to be the modern update, Magic Mike (I haven't actually seen Magic Mike yet, so please roll your eyes if I'm wrong) but it's cute and sweet. This is sort of mirrored in the protagonists, who are not professions and are attractive in a believable, guy next door, warts-and-all kind of way. The final show has an almost community-center feel to it. It's cute. It's not hilarious and it's not super-sexy, but it's comfy and good.

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

Saw The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (thanks, Nina!) It was a documentary about the sprawling White family, a group of mostly women who are in and out of jail and rehab. The men of the family are all either young enough to still be in highschool, in jail, or dead. They are described as fierce, free, and independent although of course for folks who are so very free they do spend a lot of time under the thumb of state authority and of course they're mostly on welfare. Their only claim to fame is their long-dead patriarch who was incongruously famous for tap-dancing to country music. This comes up once or twice but mostly acts as a sort of hook to pull you into this family.

The film mostly follows the White family, lionizing them or allowing them to boastfully lionize themselves. The birth and subsequent confiscation of a baby serves as a frame for the film, although the Whites and exactly how very free they are is the true subject of this film. I kept thinking to myself that if I were born into this family, I would surely be dead by now. They are violent, addicted to drugs, and spend most of their time carrying out intricately interlocking schemes of revenge. They seemed like a southern sort of Addams Family; violent, intensely interested in spirituality, intense.

They frankly repulsed me. Make no mistake, this repulsion on my part is solely an indictment of me. They are human beings with addictions and vices the same as any of us. A younger version of me would have said that their way of life is dying out but now I'm not so sure. Their way of life is overtly hostile to my own. This window into their lives is interesting, but I am very glad they're stuck in Boone County, West Virginia.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Saw Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, an extremely post-modern film about (as far as I can tell from the film) a rambling novel written as if it were an autobiography that interrupts itself, runs backwards and forwards in time, comments on the writing of the book and all manner of narrative goofiness. In the spirit of this, the film itself follows the actors playing the lead roles, the behind-the-scenes drama of filming, re-filming, and rewriting the movie, even explaining (in voice-over) that an extended version of this scene will be available on the DVD. This is a film after my own heart.

The film is extremely messy. It's hard to parse what the film is about, however one character is a film buff and seems to spell out in one scene what the point of it all is, but of course they're just a character in the film, so who knows. Perhaps their explanation is ironically skewed for comic effect. The point (if we are to take their word for it) is that life is messy and difficult but that our futile efforts to combat this are noble and should be praised. A neat little message from a messy film.

Although the theme of the film resonated with me, the execution did not. I found it a tad dry and restrained for a comedy. Then again these high-wire self-referential films often have to be a bit dry in order to not confuse the audience (cf. Charlie Kaufman's work) so perhaps it's forgivable. It was sort of a slog at parts though. The last scenes, which happen during the credits, are almost the most fun. The two main actors just sit and joke with each other. Their chumminess is a bit contrived, but they are amiable and likable.

Street Fight

Saw Street Fight, an extremely dramatic look at the Newark mayoral race of 2004 between incumbent Sharpe James and Corey Booker, both black democrats. The film mostly follows the Booker camp, not by choice apparently, but because any attempt to film James is instantly shut down by city police. From the start, Booker is the underdog. Rumors of corruption swirl around Mayor James and without any means of access, those rumors are left unchallenged. As the race draws closer and tightens, things get dirty. Booker's blackness is called into question. He's accused of being gay and (for some reason) Jewish. The tension mounts incredibly as the election draws to a close.

The documentary is fascinating, providing a literally street-level view of the Booker campaign. I wish we could have seen the other side. Was Booker's team tearing down James signs as the James team was Booker's? It's extremely frustrating at parts but, you know, this is how the sausage is made even in the relatively small-potatoes race for Mayor. The aftermath, after the film ends, is a comforting epilogue to the whole thing.

The Asphalt Jungle

Saw The Asphalt Jungle, a heist noir. It's a fairly straightforward film. The plan is laid out, the troops assembled, the heist, then the tricky aftermath for the denouement. This film comes to us from the 50s and is interesting in how it humanizes its characters. The most fascinating character is the rich guy who's bankrolling the operation. He's struggling financially and the actor who plays him does an excellent job of subtly stuttering and wincing, belying his confident exterior. Well done.

This film comes to us from the 50s, a time of deep law and order, and yet the protagonists are fairly likable. They're a far cry from the gleeful psychopaths and foreign agents of the 40s noirs. Then again, the ringleader of the gang is German - surely this is a significant thing for the 50s, when memories of WW2 must have been quite fresh. The ringleader is a kind of gentleman, very clever and always talking about his love for beautiful ladies. Maybe in the 50s this was meant to indicate complete sexual depravity, but to me today it just seemed humanizing and kind of sympathetic. There's also a fairly moving speech near the end of the film from the Police Commissioner to a gang of hostile press agents about the necessity of having cops and the terrible evils in this world. There's a tension here between sympathy for the bad guys and condemnation of their actions.

This was not a super-exciting film. The sympathetic bad guys are fairly straight-laced and genteel. Very polite, but not very exciting. The films simultaneous sympathy and condemnation suggests a subversive underbelly, kept in check either by McCarthyism or by the Production Code. Unfortunately, I only really picked up on this by the end of the film and anyway lack the context to tell what's really shocking about it. I should see this film again.